Woman died after doctors failed to spot toilet brush in her buttock

A mother died after doctors repeatedly failed to spot a toilet brush handle embedded in her buttock. Cindy Corton, 35, was left with the bizarre injury after a drunken fall in a friend's bathroom in 2005.

She was twice seen by hospital staff in the aftermath of the incident and an X-ray was carried out. But an inquest heard it took Mrs Corton, of Sleaford, Lincolnshire, two years to convince doctors that the handle was lodged in flesh of her bottom.


Photo from here.

By then what should have been a routine procedure to remove it had become much more dangerous. After two unsuccessful operations in 2007, Mrs Corton underwent further, much riskier surgery and died from massive blood loss at Nottingham's Queen's Medical Centre in June last year.

Recording a narrative verdict, coroner Stuart Fisher criticised Dr Killian Mbewe, who first examined Mrs Corton at Grantham hospital. After the inquest, husband Peter Corton said: "Cindy got a very poor service from the NHS. I'm sure she would have got better treatment in foreign countries."